


love only left me alone

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Episode: s03e09 Closure, Gen, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, past Jemma Simmons/Will Daniels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-28
Updated: 2017-11-28
Packaged: 2019-02-08 04:39:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12856926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: A visitor interrupts Grant's assassination of Rosalind Price with a very interesting offer.





	love only left me alone

**Author's Note:**

> For the soulmates prompt "establish"
> 
> Title from "Silence" by Marshmello.

It’s a long shot. Not the longest Grant’s ever taken, but long enough he takes his time lining it up, settles in early to make sure he’s accounted for all factors, while ten blocks away Rosalind Price straightens up her apartment for her big date. Nice of her to set the table early so he knows he’s got the right window.

A voice in his ear tells him Coulson’s on his way up (like he couldn’t tell from the way Price danced to the intercom) and in that eerie, horror movie way Grant hears footsteps. Not over some sort of mic planted in Price’s building, _here_ , in the vacant apartment he’s using as a sniper’s nest. He’s got his pistol drawn and aimed at the door behind him before he recognizes the footsteps are too light and hurried to be Coulson’s. Then the door opens and he knows why.

“Simmons,” he says on a grin. “This is a surprise. Come to make another attempt on my life? No. Don’t answer that.” There’s no telling who might be listening. Simmons was dumb enough to come at him alone last time, he doesn’t expect to be so lucky again. “Weapons. On the- Out the window,” he says on second thought. It’d be just like her to expect to be disarmed and bring a bomb or chemical weapon or something that can incapacitate him so long as he’s in range.

She rolls her eyes but does as ordered, tossing an ICER out the window he opens for her.

“Really?” he demands. She cannot expect him to believe that’s all of it. Sure enough, when he pats her down—gun pressed to her head or her heart the whole time—he does find a wooden stake in her boot. He twirls it between his fingers while he straightens, enjoying the simple pleasure of having the upper hand. Her heart’s pounding so hard he can feel it. Could be fear on account of the gun pressed to her sternum, could be arousal thanks to the way the barrel’s dragged her collar down, exposing part of her bra. Either way he’s the one in control here. Unlike last time.

His satisfaction ebbs when he checks her ears and finds them empty. No comm. And there was no wire when he searched her.

He takes another look at her. Longer now. He’s heard enough rumors the last few months to know where she’s been—and she looks it. Thin and pale, eyes wide in their sockets. She’s seen some shit and it’s not done haunting her.

“What the hell, Simmons?” He takes a step back, giving them both a little breathing room. The proximity’s all well and good for intimidation, but he’s missing something here and whatever it is he wants a little space to react when it comes at him.

Her breathing eases, shoulders roll back. She’s not easily rattled, but then she never was.

The voice in his ear demands to know what’s taking so long.

“Keep your pants on,” Grant says—this is what he gets for letting Malick send his own people on this op—and pulls the comm out, tucking it into a pocket so he can focus. “What’s this about?” he asks Simmons.

Up to now her focus has been fixed on the wall behind him, but with some effort she shifts it to his face. “I’m here to offer you my help,” she says and aside from the slight tremor in her voice, sounds as superior as ever.

He doesn’t bother to bite back his laugh. “ _You?_ ” he asks. “Want to help _me_?”

Her eyes slide to the rifle behind him, still waiting for him to take the shot. They snap back to him and she nods once, quick like she’s ripping off a bandaid.

He relaxes his stance a bit, crosses his arms over his chest. He’s just gotta hear this. “Help me with what? Redemption?” Malick offered him that too, thought he actually wanted it. Fool old man.

“Malick,” she says, wiping the smile off his face. He’d like to write off the possibility of her developing telepathy since they last met, but he can’t quite. “You plan on removing him from the equation and establishing yourself as Hydra’s sole head.”

“Let’s say I do. Why do I need you? And, for that matter, why the _fuck_ would you want to help me?”

“There’s more to it than that. More to Hydra. There’s a-” she struggles with the words for a moment- “a monster. I believe Malick intends on bringing it back to Earth. After that I couldn’t say but, given what it’s done to the planet it’s currently inhabiting, I don’t expect it will be good.”

Grant isn’t surprised SHIELD caught up so fast, but he’s not happy about it either. “It’s a god, actually. According to Malick.” He can’t quite keep how he feels about that out of his voice.

“He’s told you,” she says. He’s caught her off-guard with that. Nice not to be the only one. She shakes it off. “Did he also tell you that Hydra routinely sends sacrifices to this ‘god’? And that the last were a team of astronauts who fifteen years ago thought they were embarking on a deep space mission from which they would be retrieved in twelve months?”

Grant resists the urge to take a step back. He’s seen Simmons hurting and scared and broken, but he’s never seen her like this. If he goes out into that hall and finds the berserker staff lying there, her fingerprints all over it, he won’t be surprised.

She drags her collar down. Not low between her breasts like it was before, but to the side so he can see what he ignored earlier. He didn’t _want_ to see it, didn’t want to recognize that it meant. He saw her soulmark once, back in Morocco when they had to share quarantine quarters while they waited to be cleared for release to the Bus. _You’re still here_ is still scrawled in the space between her heart and her shoulder, only where before the words were dark and clear, now they’re faded, the lines of them losing coherence. Her soulmate’s dead.

“Will spent fourteen years in hell because of Gideon Malick. And we had six months together before- before he-”

Grant reaches for her, but she pulls herself together before he can touch her.

“-before that _thing_ killed him. He died protecting me, so I could make it home.”

The pain in her eyes is familiar; he’s seen it in his own often enough the last few months. A lifetime of waiting, a brief interlude of happiness, and then watching your soulmate be stolen away. Grant knows the story too well.

“What do you want, Jemma?” he asks softly.

Her jaw hardens. “I want Malick to die. I want him to spend the rest of his life suffering, without hope. And I want the thing that stole Will from me to die on that barren rock. I don’t want it to ever reach this world.”

He nods slowly. “That can be arranged.” He can already see what she’s thinking—or what she will be thinking; it’s possible, revenge virgin that she is (she never did finish him off), that she hasn’t quite made the final leap yet—and it aligns very nicely with his own plans. “What’s in it for me?”

She opens her arms in a shrug. “You get me. My involvement should make it easier for you to maneuver Malick where you want him and, afterward, I’ll-” she hesitates only a heartbeat too long- “stay on. We know from Hunter’s infiltration of your ranks that your science division is nonexistent. I can fix that.”

Now this is a surprise. “You’ll work for me?”

“Yes,” she says without hesitation.

“For _Hydra_?”

That gives her pause, but not much of one. “Yes.”

Grant’s gotta say, this is a hell of a coup. He steps around the rifle, back into place. “You know that to keep Malick happy, I’m gonna have to finish this, right?”

Her breath catches. “Are you going to kill Coulson?”

He could say yes—or just not a no—really push her to accept what she’s signing up for, but he has time for that. Better to start off slow with destroying the people who robbed her of her soulmate. Then after that they can work up to her helping him kill the team.

“Nah. Just his girlfriend, who I hear was involved in that mission too, if it makes you feel any better about it. Malick’s guys on the ground are gonna make a run at Coulson after but I think we both know he’ll be too good for that. So? You having second thoughts or are we good?” He settles into his seat, lines up his shot. Price is sitting exactly where he thought she would, south side of the room, directly through the window. She’s smiling at something Coulson’s said, taking a bite of her … did he seriously bring _burgers_ to their date? Really? Damn comms agents have zero game.

Grant could do it now. One pull of the trigger and it’d all be over. But he waits.

“Jemma?” he presses.

“Do it,” she says. “Whatever you have to. So long as Malick suffers.”

Grant smiles. “Oh, he will,” he says, but he’s not talking about Malick. He wonders what’s gonna hurt Coulson worse: watching his girlfriend die or realizing that Simmons gave the order? Grant shifts his finger to the trigger; they’ll find out soon enough.

 


End file.
